


Hunt of the Rose Colored Fawn

by JThistle



Category: Exalted (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: F/M, Romance, Short chapters?, alternating veiwpoints, low-level stalking?, mild swears, the maiden of secrets makes a brief appearance, unhealthy relationship dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 11:26:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17661686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JThistle/pseuds/JThistle
Summary: Eridanus Nox had been taken in to Yu-shan at an early age; he left behind little that he would miss, and set his sights on accruing as much influence and power as he could -- but he could not forget his childhood friend, the Rose Fawn.And it was because he could not forget that he intervened in her fate, and brought her Exaltation upon her in the wrong life, and is now responsible for tracking her down, just like he's tracked down other Exaltations before. There's no question that he'll do whatever he can to save her life . . .. . . but can he bring himself to save her heart?





	Hunt of the Rose Colored Fawn

Once, there was a maiden . . .

. . . and a beautiful maiden she'd grown up to be.

They had been playmates, a long time ago, but of course she'd forgotten him in the time since then.

That was what it meant to be one of the Maiden's Chosen, after all -- he could make up an identity that might last for a while, but sooner or later, they all flickered away in the daylight, eclipsed by more immediate concerns and brighter destinies. They were meant to be content with that, and he'd had years to perfect the image of that contentment, even if the restlessness of his heart continued to defy everything his sifu tried to teach him.

After all, they were the hidden masters of all of Creation; they controlled the fates of cities, of satraphies; no one ever questioned their demands, as long as they moved together as one.

And if maybe, sometimes, one of them placed a hand on some petty, weak strand of fate; if they prolongued a single life that should have ended, or heaped wealth on a family that should have starved . . . well, as long as they covered their tracks, there was nothing wrong with it. He was sure everyone in Heaven had similar secrets, but they were not the secrets he cared about, and so he paid it no mind.

It was not supposed to result in her Exaltation.

Certainly, it was not supposed to result in her Exaltation as one of the corrupted god-kings of ages passed, in service to nothing but whatever selfish whims she could muster up. He told himself, at first, that he was not jealous.

But the resentment built.

~*~

Perhaps it did not help that as children, they had been opposites. He had been small, frail, and helpless -- pushed around by the other children in their village because he was easy to push around, punished or scolded by the adults because he was easy to punish or scold when the other children got into trouble, and, when he was being neither pushed around nor punished nor scolded, left to his own devices because even then, he was easy to forget.

She had been beloved; the brilliant child who knew the answer to any question, who lead the other children on magical adventures and listened to the adults conversations with a wise, studious air that they found charming rather than laughable. He might have resented her right then and there, except that she was also the one who would interfere when the other children got to bullying him.

"Leave him alone!" she'd say.

"You should be ashamed of yourselves!" she'd tell them. And they'd listen, because she had a way of looking at a person that made them want to do whatever she said.

He might have resented her even despite that, but he was also a little in love with her.

And when he went to Heaven, he was supposed to have been the special one, the one who protected her now, but that wasn't quite how things worked out.

~*~

The night she Exalted was one of those nights where you know something's gone wrong before you even get home, or before you get out of bed to go to work, and you spend the whole interrim between knowing something has gone wrong and finding out what exactly that was telling yourself nothing could possibly be out of place, that everything was fine, that it was just overwork or lack of sleep and once you put your feet up for a little bit, closed your eyes, it would all go away and you'd be fine. It had just been a stressful day. You were just coming down with a cold.

He returned to his modest celestial manse later than usual -- there had been too many hang ups at work, and he hadn't even been able to check on her like he normally did, in between one thing or another -- and out of sorts, and it was easy for him to tell himself these things. He hadn't been sleeping well, after all, because he was waiting for someone to discover just what he'd done the week before, and how and why, and he had been stressed at work, because it turned out that saving one insignificant mortal life from their timely death was, in fact, a bureaucratic nightmare, and he'd been out the door for the evening before he managed to cough a small pattern spider into his hand and sent it off to find out whatever it was she was up to, which was bound to be horribly unenlightening the first time around because somehow the damn thing never just came back with the whole story, and had to go off and get one piece at a time.

And he did think he was coming down with something, because his nose had been running since about noon. Which was par the course for him, really -- it had been almost a month since he'd last been sick, and he was certainly due for another cold, and all his coworkers to look appropriately abashed about coming within five feet of him.

There were a great deal of things he could have blamed his anxiety on, and he certainly tried, but the moment he stepped into his living room, all those things flew out of his head, because standing in the middle of his living room was the Maiden of Secrets herself, and quite frankly, unless something had gone very, very bad, the only explanation for that was that he was hallucinating.

"Oh, why couldn't you have just left well enough alone?" were the first words out of her mouth, and honestly, it was not a promising start.

~*~

He did not get fired.

He did not even get transferred, nor did she cajole him to think about the people he considered his friends and allies, or anything really. He told himself he didn't really understand the purpose of her visit, and in truth, as long as he didn't try to, he didn't.

But when the pattern spider returned to him, with nothing more to say than, "The Rose Fawn is sleeping," there was nothing he could do but lay on his side glaring at it, while it fidgeted on the night table, awaiting more orders, or perhaps a dismissal.

He had to take a deep breath, count all the way up to twenty and back down again, and clench both of his fists so hard that his nails -- filed down carefully so as not to be a distraction or to look messy -- left half moon imprints in his palms before he could trust himself to speak.

That was what it found important?

That was the only thing it could tell him about how she was doing?

"Go away," he managed, finally, and rolled over to his other side. It was not the most polite way to treat his not-really secretary.

But it was better than calling it dumb, or demanding answers he couldn't bare to hear, in any case.


End file.
